


Diary of a Weapon of Mass Destruction

by teef (acidbathh)



Series: Bottlecaps [2]
Category: Eddsworld - All Media Types
Genre: Alpha Edd, Beta Matt, Death, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Non-Graphic Violence, Omega Tom, Temporary Character Death, a/b/o dynamics, alpha tord, everyone has PTSD, everyone is struggling mentally lets be honest, im still learning to tag things but this is better than it was
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-07
Updated: 2020-02-15
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:00:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21702619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acidbathh/pseuds/teef
Summary: I have a public diary now, because why the actual fuck not? I'm impulsive and stupid, and this seems like a good idea.Basically, I'm a weapon of mass destruction with the raw power to destroy the entire army base I live in, but I don't because I can't because Tord--Red Leader--keeps sedating me every time I try, and also he's a prick. Listen to me tell you about my experiences with being a POW, basically an unpaid intern for the Red Army, temporarily mated to the Red Leader, and so very in need of help.Or don't, I'm not your dad.
Relationships: Tom/Tord (Eddsworld)
Series: Bottlecaps [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1465864
Comments: 6
Kudos: 48





	1. Angst and Introductions

**Author's Note:**

> hello this is my first time writing and posting literally anything, but i've decided that i will, even if whatever the hell this is doesn't get finished, because i do what i want now. im honestly making this out to be a lot funnier than it is, because so far its about depressing stuff and death, lol. but most of that is just lore i guess, so that we can get to the funny parts? i think that's how it works. i don't know, i don't write much so i guess we get to find out my writing and storytelling style as we go along.
> 
> uh probably gonna be content warnings for a lot of heavy stuff down the line, but for now its just mental illness stuff and uh mentions of suicide.

Boredom alone is enough to make someone start something. 

Does that sound stupid? I don't know. I don't even really know why I'm writing this, I guess it's because the above statement is true, which is fucking obvious; I'm bored as fuck and I'm starting something because of it. A journal? A diary? A record of events? A small novel? I don't fucking know. All I know is that I'm bored, and I need something to do, so I'm going to do anything I can to get out of this rut. 

I guess for the sake of whatever bullshit I'll probably just be telling stories over and over again, because that's what the good people come here for: stories. And I mean, I have a lot. Doesn't mean any of them are good or anything, but I have them, so I'm going to tell them. I don't know for who's sake, mine or someone else's, but I hope it can teach someone something, maybe. Even if it's just one of those moments like the ones on TV, where a character fucks up and doesn't realize it until they get into another situation where it hits them like 'oh shit, I'm in the wrong here' and then they go fix whatever mess they made. I never found those realistic, but they're somewhat satisfying. 

To start off with, I'm Tom, I guess. I mean, that's my name. I like strong alcohol, long walks to pubs and frisky women. And men. Frisky anyone, I'm horny and lonely and probably a little desperate. Just kidding, I'm mated. Kind of. It's complicated, and a long story. Should that be the first one I start with? Eh, it's interesting enough, why not. 

Basically, I'm a war criminal. 

A long ass time ago, when I was around twenty-eight years old, (I'm forty-seven now, so that was almost twenty years ago, yikes I'm old), my supposed love interest and future mate did something terrible, so I did something equally or moreso terrible-- it's hard to tell these days-- and that lead to him hunting me down and kind of stalking me...? Or having people stalk me on his behalf. Lucky for him, I was too severely chronically depressed to do anything about it, despite having known about this happening for a long time. 

See, this guy, my love interest and future mate, is a power hungry prickish twat with an ego and pride more fragile than my self esteem-- and that's bloody saying something. When he came back, he'd been gone for about eight to ten years after abandoning his pack to, uh, join the army to take over the world. He wanted to, quote, 'make it in the big city'. Oh he fucking made it alright. 

If I remember correctly, he'd started off as a prosthetics creator or some shit, whatever the technical term is. Basically, he started a company that created robotics and prosthetics. He was rich, so he used his parent's money to fund most of the stuff he did until he made it on his own, or at least that's what I assume happened. He's a fucking rich kid and military brat, so you can imagine how that would go. 

Anyways, he built stuff until he, I don't know, decided he wanted to start some dumbshit army and take over the world in the name of communism or something. Personally, I'm more of a socialist, perhaps an anarcho-communist, not full-on authoritarian, but whatever floats his goat. I actually don't even know what section of communism Tord is going for, come to think of it. I mean, he probably did is research, but maybe I should ask. 

He'd been doing the whole DIY army shit for about, I don't know, several years before he came back, but I'm not really sure how long. What matters is he came back and stole the robot he'd been hiding under our house for the past eight to ten fucking years, that surprisingly, no one had noticed except for me. Yeah, he kept a robot under the house, and I'm not talking one the size of a car, or master chief from Halo, or even zero-suit samus, I'm not even talking transformers, like this shit was godzilla sized. Bigger than our fucking house, so I have no clue how he managed to hide it under our house for so long, or how he built it, or when, but I do know that it took less than an hour, less than half an hour, probably less than twenty minutes, to destroy that piece of shit. 

I think it's name was Mjolnir. Not that I care. 

Sometimes, I think back on that whole incident and laugh a little. It took so damn long to create that thing, with an immeasurable amount of blood, sweat and tears to put it together, program it, work it out, and I destroyed it in minutes. At the same time, my hyperempathy makes me want to die, because I know that if I were in that situation, I'd probably rip me limb from limb. Not that I'd die, of course, but that's a story for later. 

Anyways, I destroyed that motherfucker in the span of a few minutes, and in the process absolutely and utterly disfigured Tord, my love interest, my rival and the piece of shit I was bonded to for about two years-- another story for later. I thought he was dead for a long time, until he hunted me down and I actually got to see the damage. A lot of it had actually been fixed up and was better than what I thought it would be, and that was due to the scientist that I'd later know better as Bones-- a freak that shouldn't have a medical license for too many reasons. 

Basically, Tord hunted me down after that incident and after he'd had some time to recover, had me stalked for a while before kind of kidnapping me/putting a warrant out for my arrest and having me jailed for a while. I was a prisoner of war, (POW), for a while and that was really fun. Except for when I repeatedly got into fights with other inmates, and guards, and soldiers that I'd come across, or basically anyone who even touched me or looked at me in a way I percieved as wrong. I had a lot of anger in me then. Not that I don't have any now, it's just moreso turned into even more severe depression and extremely unhealthy coping mechanisms due to things I don't yet want to even think about. 

So yeah, I'm the war criminal that mated to the person who arrested me, but it didn't exactly stay that way.

Basically, before Tord left the second time, he stayed for a couple of months. I guess as a way to disarm us or something, but during that time, not gonna lie, we had a lot of sex. Most of it was hate sex caused by charming bickering and both activities annoyed the fuck out of everyone else in the house, but hey, that's life. 

At one point, we had a good bicker together that turned into an actual fight because Tord said he was going to leave again and I didn't want that to happen, because I basically had dick on demand and I didn't want to lose that. That, and I may or may not have been warming up to the idea of the concept of perhaps being in a relationship with that prick. Thinking about that day really pisses me off for a lot of reasons, and when I think about it, I just get in a really bad mood in general because of what he did next. 

We ended up having apology hate sex or whatever, and then he mated me. Without consent, without discussing it, hell, without warning. He just did it, and then left me alone to rot. I didn't see him again after that for a few years. 

That kind of abandonment really fucked me up for a long time, not gonna lie. Still kinda fucks me up whenever Tord, or even anyone, leaves me for long periods of time, even if I know about it beforehand. It's a pretty gross feeling. 

Anyways, I had his mark for about two years. Two years of extremely painful heats, bonding/mating sickness, severe chronic depression and about eighty relapses back and forth into alcoholism. Two years of debilitating self loathing and mental illness, extreme trust issues, chronic pain in my hips, knees and ankles from the explosion he left me under because my bones healed the wrong way. Two years of failed suicide attempts because I thought that even if I couldn't die, I might as well try to get as close as possible at this point, because it couldn't get any worse than this. 

I was wrong, but that's a story for later. 

After a long enough time of suffering because of what Tord did, I'd kind of snapped. I'd just gotten a diagnosis of cancer in one of my eyes, I'd gotten fired--again--because I wouldn't show up for work due to mental illness and alcoholism and my best friend, Laurel, went on tour for a while with her band, and she's about one hundered percent of my self control. 

Basically, I cut my hair, got several new piercings, a couple new tattoos, changed my legal name to James and I took a lighter and some gasoline to the mark on my neck and burned the motherfucker off. A lot of things happened in that part of my life, really. Instead of fighting it, I let my eating disorder ravage my entire body, to the point where I was unhealthily skinny, I managed to get disability checks that I could live off of, which was nice, but I couldn't afford therapy, so instead I drank and slept most of the time 'to cope'. I constantly had both my toenails and fingernails painted black, I considered putting on makeup sometimes too, but I didn't have time for that before I found the first bug in my apartment. 

This was around the time that I figured out I was being watched and stalked. I didn't know for sure it was by Tord at the time, but I knew enough to put two and two together for the most part. 

When I noticed it, I didn't really do much about it because I was too busy being edgy and self loathing and worried about paying my bills despite my addiction to care. This is one of the points where, because of the bullshit of my mental illness(es, most of which were undiagnosed at this time), I kind of became some kind of bullshit asshole rat creature of unpredictable chaos because I'd been living with undiagnosed, untreated (quiet) BPD and a dissociative disorder at the time. 

Here's a tangent for you: If you don't know what BPD, (or more specifically, quiet BPD), is, it's basically this: 

All the time you're gross and empty inside because of childhood trauma, and also you don't know who or what you are or what your place is in the world, and with quiet BPD comes this special part where anything bad anyone says to you, or even just in your general vicinity, or about something you like, or even if they don't laugh as hard at a joke you came up with than you thought they would or wanted them to, it makes you want to die and overall, you're in hell. Oh, and you probably have a lot of anger issues. And probably trouble setting boundaries. And probably PTSD, or some form of childhood trauma that you wouldn't even consider to be trauma, but it still traumatized you and you're in hell now because of it. Oh and your parents probably hate(d) you and generally suck(ed). 

Oh and you have some kind of weird attachment issues to certain people, where one minute you love them more than anything else in the world and the second they do anything wrong, you hate them forever, never want to see them again and you absolutely will hold a grudge for even the smallest shit, and even if you forgive them, you still kind of hate them to a degree until that goes away and you love them again. 

You have a very black and white view of thinking, which is something that's extremely hard to control. As in, something is either all good or all bad, no in between. I like to think I do a pretty alright job of understanding grey areas and nuance, but my mind fails me sometimes and it can really fuck me up. 

Basically, everything fucking sucks and you want to die. 

I was living with that, all the while not knowing that what I was feeling wasn't normal in the slightest, which is really, really great. Something I'd recommend a bunch, totally. Ten out of ten. 

Anyways, back to the main story after that tangent. 

Looking back on that period of my life, I was very obviously unstable and mentally ill and generally really fucked up. Hell, I was thirty and walking with a cane because of my chronic pain, and I had this really crazy scar on the right side of my neck and lower right part of my jaw and face because I'd burned off that mating mark. To an outsider who's seen me regularly, that scar showed up out of nowhere whereas just days before I was wearing mere bandages. The way my body heals is generally whack. 

Around that time that I had my snapping point and mild mental breakdown is when Paul and Patrick came in to arrest me. Now, I do not handle that sort of thing very well, even when I am visually impaired and have to walk with a cane for a couple of different reasons--the main one being that I refuse to have to sit in a wheelchair, I'm not ready for that. I fought back as much as I could, but I was clearly no match for a blow to the head because, well, look at me now. 

I was taken, interrogated, and kept as a POW until I was forced to work for Tord due to the fact that while I had chosen to be executed for my crimes, it was found very quickly that nothing Tord's little army can do will kill me-- unfortunate for me in my near-constantly suicidal state at the time-- and he reluctantly put me in a uniform that I think he very quickly found very attractive, and then I became some kind of unpaid intern/secretary/PA-type character in the army that is also secretly a bioweapon of mass destruction. Well, not secretly, most people are aware of this, but the public isn't, mainly because I keep pulling Bobs. Bob, of course being a former member of the band My Chemical Romance, basically famous in the bandom for hating when the cameras were on him, and was constantly telling people to get them out of his face. What a fucking mood. 

So yeah. That's my rambly couple of stories. I'm the unpaid intern that's secretly a weapon of mass destruction, which almost sounds like it could be the plot to an anime that Tord would become obsessed over for way too long. Hell, I'd probably watch it. 

Either way, that's me and some of my shit for now. Until next time(?), uh, fuck off I guess.


	2. That Time I was Shot to Death pt. 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> content warnings for (gun) violence and death, just in case.

I know I should be writing but I don't have all that much motivation for it. Everything feels heavy and tired, and not just because it's midnight and I should be asleep. Everything is heavy, all the time. Everything is heavy and tired and exhausted from the moment I wake up until my head hits the pillow, and a massive amount of the time I don't even sleep. I just kind of go through the motions looking slightly less dead than I feel inside--and that's only because I shower sometimes--because I have to. 

I mean, yeah, getting out of bed, eating, sleeping, writing things down, doing paperwork, going on errands and missions, all of these things are massively harder in this state, but I have to do them so I do. It's not really a matter of life or death for me anymore, everyone knows this, but I just have to do things because no one really listens to me and I don't really matter in most situations. That's something I learned while being a POW--which I arguably still am, depending on who you ask. 

Being a formal POW was a very fucking... Experience for me to say the least.

When I got into prison--when I was first captured--I was extremely aggressive to most people around me, Tord included, duh. I was pretty violent, I shifted semi-frequently despite the serum that people kept injecting into me, (which did make it harder, but definitely didn't stop me if I got angry enough), and I definitely had a knack for biting people when my arms and legs were restrained. Not the most mature thing to do, sure, but my teeth are extremely sharp. I probably took a chunk out of some guards here and there more than once, but that stopped when people started putting a muzzle of sorts on me. It was kind of this mask that went over my mouth and nose that was made of leather with metal bars on the front to make speaking and breathing easier I guess. The guards hated having to deal with me, but, eh, the feeling was mutual. 

Mainly, my problem was with people touching me. For the longest time, and even now, I had a lot of issues with people touching me, almost my entire life. I have my reasons, but most of them stem from childhood... Experiences... That I've never really talked about with very many people. Especially when people grab me aggressively, that tends to make me extremely uncomfortable, and if the conditions are right, give me flashbacks, which is something that happened while being an imprisioned POW more than once. 

I was definitely aggressive when trying to get the point across that I don't want people touching me, but fellow inmates took that like a bunch of highschool bullies do and continued to make games out of touching me for a long time before I snapped. It only happened once, but that's just because of what happened afterwards--something I won't go into detail about. 

I got pissed, basically. People were harassing me a lot, physically and even sexually, which really got on my nerves--nothing makes me more uncomfortable than stuff like... That. Combined with the uncomfortable-to-say-the-least situation, the loud environment and harassment, I could feel a near constant state of sensory overload building up. 

Tangent Alert!

If you don't know, sensory overload is a messy thing for people with sensory issues. Disorders like ADHD, OCD, Autism, anxiety and sensory processing disorders all have things like sensory issues and sensory overload, and when someone gets overloaded they might freak out. Some people cry, some scream, some roll on the floor, some do a combination of all three and then some. Some people get extremely irritable and snap at people easily, some make a lot of humming noises, some breathe heavily, some rock back and forth or bob their heads around or try to walk or run somewhere in an aimless direction to get rid of the overloaded senses. Some people hit or kick things, some jump up and down or slam their head into the wall or any other form of seemingly aimless self harm--and all of it is to try and get rid of what their body is feeling because of how their senses have become overloaded. To say the least, sensory overload is a terrifying and painful experience that makes it literally impossible to do anything else other than freak out. It can give some people anxiety or panic attacks, in others it can make them worse. Even little things like not having enough spoons to eat your ice cream with, or not having your favourite blanket or wanting to go home or being unable to do a specific task in a specific order can all set off sensory overload or make them worse. 

Basically, prison is not ideal for the neurodiverse, and unfortunately for me, I fall on that spectrum on the side of ADHD. I'm bouncy, I can't focus, I space out and daydream a lot, I talk too fast and can't read a whole lot, i flap my arms and chew my hands and hyperfixate on one thing at a time and have pretty strong emotions--but it's hard to tell if that last part is related to my laundry list of mental health issues or if it's specifically the ADHD. 

Either way, I'm a lot when I'm in a good mood, but when I'm even worse when I'm in sensory hell because I'm one of those people who tends to get extremely irritated. I really don't want to, but I need to hit things or kick things or scream or slam my body into things. If I were to be left alone when that happened, I'd probably look like a toddler having a tantrum. Sometimes that's what it feels like, too. It's not like I do it on purpose, or to intentionally spite people or anything, sometimes I do try to be good. Not really when I was in prison, but sometimes I do, promise. It just doesn't work. 

And when I'm having people scream at me, hit me, touch me, talk to me, all sorts of other things while being in a chaotic environment where I can't calm down and I have no quiet place to be to reorganize myself for a bit... It's literal fucking agony. Hell, they can send me into episodes of suicidal ideation because being alive in moments like that is literal hell for me. 

I can feel when it's coming on. It feels like the jitters at first, just slight nervousness or anxiety, and then it gets worse and worse. It starts to get more and more uncomfortable over a period of time, but you try to ignore it and push it down and push it down because you're in a high pressure environment and doing something like suddenly making noise or punching something to cope would probably get you yelled at, which would only make things worse. As time goes on, and you can't do anything about what's happening, you start moving. Maybe bouncing your legs, or your whole body, or maybe you're rocking back and forth, or flapping your arms or chewing on your hand. You're clearly uncomfortable, and you're trying to do whatever you can to make sure that nothing bad happens, but then people look at you funny and tell you to stop and yell at you and call you names instead of asking questions and that's where things start to go from bad to worse. 

You're forced to repress everything until you can get to a quieter or more private environment where you can calm down, but it just doesn't happen. You keep having to stay out in a loud, bright, touchy-feely environment that is so extremely uncomfortable and is causing you pain and you start freaking out. You might have a panic attack, you might be forced to roll on the ground and start screaming or slam your head into the wall or pull your hair or even just cry because there's nothing else you can do without causing a massive scene. 

That's kind of what it feels like for me. Sorry for the massive rangent, (rant + tangent), I just have a hard time feeling like I'm getting the point across clearly to people who might not experience this sort of thing. Cough, cough, Tord, cough, cough. 

Not naming any names. 

When that started happening to me in prison, frequently, I had to push it down over and over until it just started building up. It kept building up, only letting out small amounts in short bursts in the hopes of keeping myself from snapping entirely, but soon enough the short bursts weren't enough, even when I was taken to isolation for it. Though, isolation wasn't the best thing for me because most of the time I was tied up and couldn't do much other than scream, cry and struggle--none of which I actually did consciously. I had an image to keep up. 

Sometimes, I was tied by the wrists and ankles to a bed. Not a great thing for someone who's experienced too many forms of child abuse, honestly. I definitely got more than a few flashbacks in isolation. 

I was experiencing a pretty bad sensory overload that I was trying to push down that day, and I was also feeling the beginngings of heat hit me. They usually gave me and other omegas what I assumed to be suppressants, but my extreme paranoia surrounding Tord and his little army thought they were some kind of drug that they'd use against me somehow, so I never took them. I hid them somewhere in my mouth and spat them out later whenever I could. 

When I snapped, I punched someone in the nose as hard as I could for grabbing me by the shoulder. I sent the poor bastard flying across the room a bit and broke his nose, practically turning it to mush. I felt a lot better then, but when I realized what I'd done, I started freaking out. I didn't want to go back to isolation because, again, I was often restrained and got flashbacks. I mean, it's not like they knew that--and it wasn't like I was going to tell them--but still, it wasn't fun for me. I realize it wasn't supposed to be fun, but that didn't make it any better for me. I think I even have PTSD from being in there, now. Like, it's bad. 

Naturally, this made my sensory overload much, much worse than it was before, and as a subconscious reaction to stress, I started shifting. I couldn't stop once it had started, kind of like when you piss yourself, except ten times worse. Usually, I could, at most, shift about half way and that was if I was really fucking pissed, and that had only happened once. 

That wasn't nearly as bad as this. 

I started shifting and when I realized that I wouldn't be able to stop, even after half way, I tried to get outside in an effort to minimize any damages, but I'd already seen guards coming towards me as soon as they saw me punch someone. They'd started backing off when they saw me shifting, but when I ran, they started chasing me. I think I was having a panic attack. My breathing was out of whack, I wasn't thinking properly and I was shifting. I was trying to resist it, which was causing it to go slower, but the pain made it hard to run and the sound of footsteps behind me only freaked me out even more and that's when it happened. 

The gunshot. 

From behind me, a soldier shot their gun. I heard it, but I didn't feel it, like some sort of freak adrenaline thing. I heard the shooting soldier get yelled at or something from behind me, and while running, I tried to figure out if and where I had been shot. I saw blood dripping from my face and onto the ground, so I grabbed my ears, but none of them were wet. I touched my cheek and my left hand came back bright red. I know I can't die, I knew in that moment that I couldn't die, but the idea of having to deal with being shot in the head was still terrifying to me. It was like that primal fear of death had been instilled into me again for that moment, and that's where I blacked out. I usually black out during shifts, which isn't so fun for me, really. Well, it's not super fun for pretty much anyone, let's be honest. 

I don't remember much after that. From what I'd gotten from other soldiers, I had ended up storming a med bay and causing some injuries--no deaths, which I count as a good thing--and basically fucking some shit pretty badly. It was a pretty bad day for Tord's little base to say the least. 

When I woke up, I had almost no mobility. I could only move my head, my arms and legs were tied together and I was sitting in a chair, blindfolded. I very much felt like I was going to get mutilated by a serial killer. I mean, I wouldn't have put it past Tord with how pissed he was, honestly. I would have done the same thing to me. 

I could only hear someone walk into the room with me, and then he started speaking. "Ah, Tom," Tord said, likely doing that thing where villains rub their hands together or something. I dunno, I was blindfolded. "We meet again-" I groaned, realizing who was talking. "Now I know there's no loving God in this universe, because there's no way he would have let you live if there was." I said, trying to push as much snark and sarcasm and bitterness into my voice as I could. I was honestly pissed-with-a-capital-Pissed that Tord was alive, but I wasn't surprised. I was just waiting my suspicions. See, before this, we hadn't met or even seen each other, (at least as far as I know), and I wasn't yet aware that he was alive and well, or at least alive. 

"Glad to see you've still got your give 'em hell attitude, babe." I groaned. "Don't call me that, creep." I said, dragging out my words for, I dunno, dramatic effect? He gave some kind of sarcastic pout-y whine or something, and removed my blindfold. This was the first time I'd seen his face since the robot thing. "Oh, wow, I really did a number on you, huh?" I said, pressing my brows together and trying to create some kind of nonchalant/uninterested/aloof expression. He hummed, taking a step back from me. "That you did." He said. "I honestly should have done more." I glared at him, which he returned with one of equal poison. 

"I'm not here to be petty with you, Tom." Tord said, trying to come off as serious and uninterested like I was, but he was tugging the jacket sleeves of his coat and pulling down his brown leather gloves, and pacing. These were a few of his tells, showing me I was getting on his nerves. Good. "I'm here to strike a deal with you." He grinned a bit. I rolled my non-eyes into the back of my head and scoffed. "Are you for real? A deal? I'd just straight kill me if I were you." I laughed. "What, do you like me too much for that?" I taunted him. He rolled his eyes right back at me. "No, I couldn't care less for you." Liar. "I'm looking to use you because you're convenient. However, if you prove to be a problem I have no issue putting someone else in your place and throwing you away." That last part of the sentence, about throwing me away, sent some kind of pang in my stomach. "Go ahead." I said. "You're probably going to say something like 'work for me or die' or 'let me experiment on you or die' or something else stupid like that. Honestly, I'd rather die than have to continue looking at your stupid ugly face for much longer." Tord raised his brows at me. "Very mature." He said. "Gone back to petty insults. What are you, in middle school?" He taunted. I shrugged. "Might as well be, with the amount of crackpot marksmen and petty, childish inmates in your prison, all of which are badly controlled." I scoffed. "Hell, I got shot by one of your stupid little soldier boys because they couldn't listen to a single command." Tord tugged his jacket sleeves and gloves down again, glaring at me.   
How dare I, a pathetic omega, insult his pathetic little army? How dare I insult his pride and ego, more fragile than a piece of burning paper? 

He grabbed me by the face and said, "Listen here, you little bitch." Oh boy did that send a massive wave of self loathing right to my heated groin. "You are an omega. I will not have you overpowering me in any sense of the word. Your two choices right now are to work for me or die." I hated the way he used 'omega' like a slur. It fed that hole in me that told me I was worthless because of it, but I deadpanned, choosing not to react, because reacting is what he wanted. "There is an entire laundry list of things that the board wants to do to you right now." He said, straightening up and stepping back a little. He turned around and faced the bars of my cell. "Death by firing squad, leaving you to starve, beheading is a surprisingly popular one." Now, that last one sounded a little fun, I'll admit. 

I knew we could play each other like fiddles, but I wasn't having any of that today. I wanted to fuck with him badly. Scar him even more, just like he'd scarred me. As if I hadn't done enough to him physically. "I'll die, thanks." I replied calmly. He looked a little shocked, but tried to hide it. Maybe a little disappointed, too.   
Indignant, he stuck his nose up and looked down at me. 

"So be it." He said. 

Now, I knew I was unable to die, but Tord didn't. At least, as far as I knew. From what I could tell, he probably thought it was some kind of freak accident that I managed to survive getting shot dead-on with a missile and having a house dropped on me like the wicked witch, kind of like how his survival was a freak accident. Some kind of weird fate thing. But I know it wasn't. 

I wanted him to watch me die. I knew that it would make him hurt, and I wanted him to hurt. I wanted him to hurt for the things he'd done to me, and he'd soon learn that all by himself, smart guy. 

He'd been nice enough to let me choose my method of death, and I had some time to think about it. Death by firing squad was classic, violent and brutal. Leaving me to starve was probably too slow, and wouldn't work anyways. I needed something that hit hard and fast. Beheading sounded pretty fun because I didn't know how my body would react, I hadn't been beheaded before. I wondered if my head would grow back like my other limbs, or if my body would get up and start searching for my disembodied head. I wondered if my head would be able to talk and be conscious while my body flailed and searched. That was probably something that I should experiment with later, not right now. Although it would be pretty fucking funny to see everyone's faces when my headless body stood up, grabbed my head and screwed it back on. The thought made me laugh. 

However, in the end, I chose death by firing squad. I had a special request, though. I asked that Tord be on that firing squad. I suspected that Tord knew something was up when I asked for him to be on the squad, but I didn't care because he didn't seem to be all that curious so far. I would be sure not to let him, or anyone else, on any secrets thus far. 

So, I was put on death row. 

I was there for about a week and a half before my deadline, (pun probably intended because I think I'm funny).

Not much happened that I want to talk about. Guards were particularly aggressive with me after that, and it was only me, which is the thing. They probably had special permissions from Tord or something, petty asshole. The other inmates ignored me for the most part, which put me in heaven because all I'd wanted to do was read. You might be wondering what happened to my heat during that period of time. Don't worry, it was dealt with plenty, but I'm not one to write about silly things like that. Was never one for smut, personally. 

When I got my last meal, I requested a package of dry ramen. Not boiled, not cooked and served as soup, just a block of plain, dry ramen. I ate the whole thing without hesitation or fail, and with that, I was ready to meet my maker, so to speak. 

I was lead out in chains by guards to a car. It was cold and cramped like most of the places in Norway that I'd been to so far--where I assumed the base was--which was basically just prison, but still. We sat in silence for along time, just me and the driver, separated by a metal barrier. The seat I sat on was plastic, straight hard, uncomfortable plastic that hurt my fucked up tailbone, which, among other things, made it hard to walk when we finally reached our destination: A desolate, empty field. 

I was lead out in chains by more guards. Out of another car that had been following us fell several alphas, specifically Tord. All with hard faces, but Tord had something behind his that he was trying to hide. Some kind of pain. I have to admit that seeing and understanding that was the reason I was smiling the entire time I was being tied to a tree in preparation for getting shot to 'death' repeatedly. My killers loaded their guns, and I kept my eye on Tord the entire time. Now I knew he knew something was up because of the way he looked at me. His glare turned hard with no discernable mask underneath as soon as he saw my wide grin. It felt good to see him so angry. 

The five shooters in front of me held out their guns, awaiting the call to kill me. It felt like forever I was waiting. My stomach was filled with some kind of anxiety or excitement, I couldn't tell which. I just knew that as soon as I came out of this alive, I'd be in for it big time, and that was something I found just a little bit exciting. 

The general or soldier or whatever in charge of deciding when to fire, a large, burly man with thick eyebrows and an upside-down nametag that I couldn't quite read, held his arm in the air to signal that it was almost time to shoot. He looked at me with some kind of angry pity, and I looked back at him and smiled. There was another soldier, younger and smaller, blonde. He had a soft, worried face in the afternoon sunlight. The soldier seemed to get ready to bring his arm down, and I looked to the blonde one next to him, smiling broadly, and I winked. He looked distressed at that.

The burly man's arm shot down to his side, and I looked back to Tord, seeing an angrily pained expression. 

I don't remember anything after that. I vaguely remember the sound of gunshots if I try hard enough, but I can't really tell if it's because I'm trying so hard to remember, I've created fabricated memories or if that's really what they sounded like.

All I remember is knowing that I'd have hell to pay when I showed up again, alive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh look a part I that is in desperate need of a part II. so early in the story? oh well, guess you'll have to deal with it lmfao *skates fast and eats ass on my way to your mums house*


	3. That Time I was Shot to Death pt. 2

Ugh my hands are working kind of wonky. They always get super stiff in the cold and never work right, and right now I'm just a tiny bit freezing. I should probably turn the fan off then, huh. 

Anyways, where was I? The dying part, right?

Yeah, I kind of died. Don't ask me what's on the other side because it's either nothing or god won't let me know yet. Either that, or death knows I'm never truly dead and refuses to show me. Who's to say? 

When I woke up, I was in the morgue. I was cold, freezing my ass off because my carcus was in a freezer. Y'know, those big drawer things that people put bodies into after the autopsies are done. I even had one of those big Y-incisions on my torso, going all the way down to just above my crotch. I didn't know why I had one because usually those are for when no one really knows how someone died, because that's mainly what autopsies are for. I thought it might have been pretty obvious how I died, I was shot to death. That, and I was currently missing one of my toes. I don't think that contributed to my death, but I'm pretty sure I still had it before I died. Who cut off one of my toes? 

And I was naked. And all of my currently healing bullet wounds were itching. Everything, all of my wounds, kept itching a lot because they were healing--another thing about my whole healing super fast thing. 

You know how scabs might itch, or how you might itch a lot when you have a cast on your arm or your leg or something after it breaks? Yeah, imagine that but a whole hell of a lot worse. I get extremely itchy when healing because the healing process is sped up extensively, so the itching is sped up and intensified as well. Not a super pleasant experience, I really hate having to deal with it and is probably one of the worst cons to this whole immortal deal that I can think of. I bloody hate it. 

Back to what I was saying. 

I was in the morgue, in one of those body freezer drawer things, and I got an idea. I thought it would be hilarious if someone came and opened up my little drawer, and then I opened my eyes and jumpscared the fuck out of them. I'm a little bit twisted. So, I managed to lay back, relax and fall asleep, despite being extremely cold. I had a blanket over my body, so I kind of huddled under that until I managed to fall asleep, (not an easy feat in this situation). 

When I woke up again, I was being pulled out of the drawer. The sound woke me up, as well as the sudden warmth that just passed through my everything. I was laying on my side, and could hear the confused sounds of a couple of people in the room. That's when I opened my eyes and sat up and looked around. In front of me, there was someone with shoulder-length salt and pepper hair and a semi-bored, semi-interested expression on his face, and the same young soldier with blonde hair and soft features that I saw when I was about to get killed. The one I winked at.   
He immediately jumped back and screamed.

I couldn't help but laugh, and I nearly fell off of the drawer thing I was sitting on when the salt and pepper doctor, (or whatever he was), caught me. He gave me this strange expression that I can't quite describe--it was almost like intrigue and interest with some kind of almost smile, except it's like he's never smiled before. He said, "Welcome back." It's like he expected this, which I would later come to learn that he did. 

In that moment, mister Red Leader himself walked into the room. The doctor dude, who I later learned was Bones, was helping me up and off the weird drawer platform. Tord looked horrified. He looked like he was going to be ill. He was clearly extremely distressed. Nothing has ever filled my heart with such joy. I was a little disappointed that he wasn't there when I woke up, but he got to see me up and moving, he got to see as the bullet wounds and Y-incision in my chest heal up, (with the stitches still in, those had to be painfully removed later--story for another time), he got to see me when he was so sure that he'd killed me himself. So, so soon after my death. It had only been a couple of days. 

When Tord got his bearings, he stormed up to me and pinned me to the wall, absolute fury pouring off of him. It was fantastic. I think he was about to cry, or he was trying not to. "You little shit." He said. The amount of venom he hissed send shivers down my spine. "You knew this would happen. You did this on purpose." I grinned. "What, I died and came back to life?" I said innocently. He growled and pushed me against the wall harder. "So what if I did?" I said, shrugging. 

It's funny to me. Years ago, we would have been on different sides. Tord purposefully trying to antagonize me and being successful, with me getting pissy. The shoe is on the other foot, now. I mean, I actually have reasons to fuck with him, that being that I was pissed at him for pulling some seriously fucked up shit with me and my friends, (I refuse to call them 'our' friends because there was no way in hell that he was friends with Edd and Matt now), but still. 

Tord just glared at me even harder. He kept pushing me into the wall. "Careful, you might squish me and I might die." I said jokingly. "I told you this would happen." Bones said from behind Tord. "That serum he consumed or injected or whatever... It wasn't designed to let someone die easily, if at all." Tord continued glaring at me for a while longer and then let me go, aggressively pushing me backwards into the wall even further. He looked rather hurt, and I ate it all up. I shrugged and grinned, standing there, bare-ass naked in front of three other people. 

"A-anyone want to bother to get him clothes?" Said the small, soft soldier that was just screaming at the sight of me moments ago. I look down and say, "Yeah, it's quite breezy in here. 'Specially on the bits." I laughed. Bones just grabbed the sheet that had been laying over my corpse and handed it to me. I wrapped it around myself like some kind of toga and Tord grabbed me by the upper arm. Naturally, that sent me into a bit of a silent panic, but I knew how to hide it. "You're coming with me." He said. "Where else would I go?" I replied, grinning. He stayed silent as he dragged me out of the morgue on the bottom floor of the base. 

I didn't bother trying to learn the layout of the place at first. I tried to keep track of twists and turns, knowing that I wouldn't be able to later, but with my impaired vison and general lack of wanting to at the time, that made it extremely hard. 

Tord's quarters were a nice shade of grey. The walls, the floors, all grey. Entering the room, in front of the door there was a desk turned to the side. Behind it and next to it against the wall were brown bookshelves. The desk was cluttered and covered in calendars and all kinds of papers and pens. To the right, there was a bed with white sheets, black pillows and a red duvet. That's where Tord tossed me, grabbing zip-ties out of his pocket--who the fuck carries zip-ties in their pockets!?--and tying my wrists. Not a great feeling, but I knew how to hide it. 

In front of the bed, several feet from the foot of it was a bathroom. 

For the most part, the room was pretty barren of any kind of decorations or anything like that, unless you counted things like wanted posters, calendars, photographs of people with red X's over their faces and other kinds of weird paperwork over the walls 'decor'. Personally, it's not my style, but whatever. You do you I guess. 

"So, what now, tough-guy?" I said. "You got me all tied up and in your bedroom. Are you gonna punish me for being bad?" I taunted. That's when he punched me in the face. Can't say I didn't deserve it--in fact, it's kind of what I wanted, a reaction out of him--but I wasn't expecting it. My nose was bleeding, I could feel it. I put my tied hands on my face to test for blood and saw it. I grinned. "Is it broken?" I said, probably sounding a little too excited for my own good. Tord just looked a little disgusted. "You're fucked up." He said. I shrugged. "It's a talent." He glared at me. "No, you're extremely fucked up." He said, putting emphasis on 'extremely'. "How could you do what you did and not see anything wrong with it!?" He raised his voice. His accent always got stronger when he was yelling or upset. I wouldn't be surprised if he started babbling in Norwegian halfway through a sentence. I wouldn't be able to understand what he's saying, though. 

"I know exactly what was wrong with what I did." I said, grinning. "I knew exactly what it would do to you, it would be upsetting-" "It was far more than upsetting! I-" He yelled, but trailed off, seeming extremely frustrated with the situation at hand. He paused for a moment, taking a deep breath. "That wasn't a fun experience for me." He said. I raised my brows. "I would sure hope not. That'd ruin the fucking point of doing that in the first place." He gave me a strange look that was some kind of glare mixed with realization. "What?" He said. "The entire point of that was to fuck with you." I said. "I wanted you to experience the same thing I did when you blew up our house and I thought I killed you for two years straight." He looked a little bewildered. "You thought I was dead?" He said. "I was all over the news." I shrugged. "I couldn't really afford TV after that on account of being poor and an addict." I said. "And my entire fucking house exploded. I had enough money to buy a place for a couple of months, but after that, everything went down the drain." I said, waving my hands in front of me. "That, and I was too busy dealing with not only the physical repurcussions of that day, but also the mental ones." I grinned sarcastically, bitterly. Can a grin be sarcastic? I don't really know, but you know what kind of grin I mean. 

"I hadn't seen your face for two years. I didn't know you were alive, and all of... This," I gestured to his whole body. "Was news to me because I've been stuck selling my stuff for alcohol and looking for a job so I could pay my future medical bills." That's where Tord looked a little confused. "Future medical bills?" He said. "Yeah, dipshit. Didn't anyone tell you? One of your little soldier boys that was stalking me?" He blinked, and I sighed. "I was diagnosed with cancer." I said in a cheerful voice, grinning painfully. "In my eyes. I can't see that well anymore because of permanent damage to my face orbs, man. I don't have the money to pay for cancer treatment." Tord seemed to have a complicated array of expressions go over his face while he thought for a minute before sitting down next to me on the bed. 

"I can help with the cancer thing." He said, leaning back on his organic hand. I groaned. "Oh, I don't trust that." I replied. "Why?" I gave him a disbelieving look. "Really?" I said, looking at him up and down. "I don't trust you to cook food for me without poisoning it, let alone 'help' me with cancer." I squinted at him. "Right." He said. He seemed a little out of it. "You're a little out of it." I said. "Go to bed or something." He laughed. "Oh hell no." He replied. "If you don't trust me not to help you with cancer, I don't trust you to not do anything while I'm asleep." I raised my brows and laughed a bit. "Yeah, touche dude. That reminds me, where am I sleeping exactly?" "Well, you can sleep on my bed." He said. I looked at him and scoffed. "Is the floor an option?" I asked. "No." "Wow, desperate much?" He punched me in the shoulder. 

It felt really weird to suddenly be almost friendly with him. I didn't really like it because I was still so pissed at him at the time. I had a lot of complicated feelings going through me at that moment. I wanted to trust him, but I didn't feel good about it because of what he'd done to me. I wanted revenge. I didn't quite feel like having him kill me and then coming back from the dead to scare him had done quite enough. I wasn't sure what I could do other than terrorize his pathetic little army for a while until he got pissed at me even more. 

I didn't want him to be anything but pissed at me, really. Having him be somewhat nice to me or at least not hating me or being pissed at me was a weird and uncomfortable feeling that I wasn't--am not--ready for. It felt weird. Like a bad kind of weird that I didn't quite know how to describe. It was uncomfortable and scary and I didn't want to deal with it. 

"Where did that scar on your neck come from?" He asked, pulling me from my thoughts. He moved his organic hand up to the side of my face, touching it, but I pushed his hand away and reached my tied hands up to my neck to feel the burn scars there. "Was it from the whole dropping a house on you thing?" He asked, seeming like he was at least trying to have a little humour about that entire ordeal. I wasn't exactly happy about that, but whatever. I shook my head. "No, this came about two years afterwards." I replied. He leaned back on his hand, looking ready to listen. "Remember when you mated me? You should. It was the same day you blew up our house. You did it without warning or consent. You didn't even bring it up." I made sure that the bitterness I felt was known. "Well, after that whole thing was over, I didn't know what to do with myself. I stayed in my new apartment for a while, newly mated with no mate to speak of because I had allegedly killed him, and, well, you could probably imagine the inner turmoil." I made sure that my tone was sharp and angry. "After two years of that bullshit, I'd snapped and decided the best course of action was to take some gasoline and a lighter to my neck and burn that shit the fuck off." I looked him dead in the eye. Tord looked almost apologetic. What a nice feeling. 

"That scent gland on my neck no longer works." I added, turning back to look straight ahead. "Do you know what your own burning flesh smells like? I'm surprised that no one came to my door to ask what the hell was burning, but then again I'm used to that." Actually talking about this after so long made me feel dead. I had a blank expression while I stared at the wall ahead of me. "I take it you're pissed." Tord said. "That doesn't even spell the half of it." I said in a calm, even tone. "I'm still absolutely fucking livid that you did that." Tord sighed. "That day didn't quite go as planned." I raised my brows. "Yeah, you can say that again." I replied. I sighed. "You got a light?" I said. He looked at me, confused. "Like, a cig." I added. "You smoke?" "I have for a couple of years now. I figured that I won't be able to die, so why the fuck not. I could just really go for a smoke right now." I sighed heavily. "That, and probably some actual clothes and control of my hands, maybe." Tord squinted. "I don't know about that last part, I'm not so sure that you won't kill me." I shrugged. "I'm still not sure I won't try, even with the binds." Tord raised a brow, or really, his only brow left. "That's what I'm talking about." He pulled a pack of cigs out of his coat pocket. "Do you want some clothes?" He asked, pulling out a cig and holding it out for me. "I dunno how I'm going to put them on with my hands tied." I said. Tord crawled over to the window that was just above the mattress of the bed and cracked it open. He sighed. "I guess I didn't quite think that through." He said, taking a lighter out of his pocket and lighting his cigarette, then lighting mine. "You? Not quite thinking things through? Imagine that." I said, laughing. He rolled his eyes, getting off the bed and going to his desk. He grabbed a pair of scissors and cut the zip-ties on my wrist. 

"Thanks for getting me out of that situation you put me in." I said. "You're welcome. I have a uniform for you." He said, going over to a door next to and behind his desk. He opened it, it was a closet. He reached inside and pulled out a rather nice black and dark blue suit hanging on a coathanger. "It should fit, but if it doesn't we can make adjustments." He said. I groaned. "Now I have to wear a uniform?" I said. "Well, you can't die, so I'm going to have to put you to use somehow." He said. I rolled my eyes. "This is the worst thing ever, it's like catholic school all over again." Tord raised his brows. "Don't ask." I said bitterly. "Aren't you a Jehova's Witness?" He asked. I rolled my eyes. "I don't think they have Jehova's Witnesses schools." I said, rolling my eyes again. 

I took the suit off the coathanger and removed my makeshift toga. Tord leaned against the wall, watching me put my new and slightly uncomfortable clothes on. 

I was buttoning up the vest, which was the last part of the outfit, when Tord said, "You look good." I didn't really know what the point of saying that was or how to reply, so I just said what I usually say when stuff like this happens. "Cool." He came over and tried to brush my hair with his hands or something stupid like that, but I smacked his hands away from my head. "Don't fucking touch me, that's gross." 

"You look unprofessional." 

"I don't care, don't touch me, you nasty." I put my hands back through my hair and messed it up again. "You're ruining my style. My aesthetic. It's all I have left after the war." I said solemnly. He laughed a little and guided me to the door. "Alright, alright." He said. 

And that was the first day of, like, the rest of my fucking life. Wild. 


	4. Rock Bottom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is just fuckign depressing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i was supposed to write about something entirely different but that didn't happen so have this instead. i also didn't proofread because 1) i don't have a proofreader and don't want one and 2) it's 2 am and this chapter took like several days to get out of my stupid brain and into my stupid computer and 3) i do not care. this is fanfiction. if you want quality work, uh, i don't know go somewhere else

This might be hard to believe, but I'm a very bitter and angry person. 

Not just a general dissatisfaction with life or injustice or whatever kind of angry, though I am that too, this kind of anger comes from a lifetime of complete and utter bullshit--and by that I mean the most, absolute, literal bullshit. Maybe not literal, but you get the point. Most people would look at a lot of my life and think "Jesus fucking Christ, how are you still alive?" But I see most of my life and I think "Wow, that's just so much bullshit. How am I still alive?" That's when I remember the bane of my existence; my inability to die. 

I mean, sure, it hasn't been like this for most of my life, leaving me to wonder how /am/ I still alive? But it's still the bane of my existence.

It puts me in very interesting situations, like when I gave Rell permanent nightmares by making him kill me as payback. Other times, it just puts me in stressful situations that strain my everything. 

It's no secret that I'm not exactly the posterchild for mental health, and that more often than not, it's probably pretty safe to assume that I'm always on the verge of snapping--because I am. I have approximately zero healthy coping mechanisms, including drinking, escapism and maladaptive daydreaming, dissociation, an eating disorder or twelve, sleeping to avoid being awake, sometimes self destructive sex, and more. Living on some kind of army base did not help any of this, I'm sure you can imagine. 

Not to mention that when one of my biggest PTSD triggers is the sound of real-life gunshots, living on an army base very quickly became a living hell for me. Of course, I never said anything because asking to not be reminded of the time I watched my dad die would probably be asking for too much and that would be selfish of me, clearly. Obviously. 

I also apparently have a massive amount of communication issues, specifically communicating issues that affect me personally, like the above. Whenever I get the chance to, I just can't. It just does not happen. Even if I want to talk about it, which most of the time I do, I just can't. I'll open my mouth to try and talk about it but nothing comes out. I don't know why this happens, if it's due to some kind of selective mutism or anxiety or what, but I can't just go and ask for help. It's lowkey the worst thing ever, right? SO relatable. Traumatized bitches, you know what I'm talking about. Maybe.

It's also the cause of, like, 99% of my problems in life. Because I can't talk to anyone about what the hell is going on, nothing in my head gets fixed and I just spiral out of control into long episodes of hating myself and wanting to die all the time, like the one I've been stuck in for the past, like, five years. Like, I'm well aware of the problem, I'm well aware of how to fix it, but it's a matter of getting to a point where I can access the solution, which I can't. It just doesn't happen. I've had this problem for most of my life and it's probably due to a lifetime of, well, bullshit that I don't like putting names to because it makes them sound worse than I think they are, even though I know they actually are that bad and those words do apply to them. No I will not clarify. 

This is called something along the lines of, uh, "Dee Nial". 

Naturally, this makes my life even more of a living hell. 

Some of the Worst Things Ever, (AKA literal PTSD triggers), for me include touching me, especially grabbing me by the shoulders or wrists, or touching my ankles, yelling at me--which I know sounds stupid, but it freaks me the fuck out every time--or generally being aggressive towards me, which puts me the fuck on edge, making sexual comments about me, and the words 'daddy', 'father' or 'papa'. 

Even typing out that list makes my brain go all funkytown, which is the word I use when things are going horrifically wrong. It's like a safeword for everyday situations, but I don't think anyone has really caught on to what exactly it means to me, and of course I can't tell anyone otherwise clearly I'll die. 

Anyways, like I said before, I struggle a lot with mental health, always have, probably always will, but hey, it could be worse. I don't know exactly how much Rell knows about it, though, or really what to do about it, because sometimes I can see that he's trying to help but doesn't really know what to do. I think it's kind of nice that he's trying, but it also makes me feel like I'm going to puke. 

I don't know if it's because I don't know how to deal with people genuinely trying to help me, especially if they don't have ulterior motives that I can immediately find, real or imagined, or if it's because of anxiety or the same reason that I find it so difficult to communicate any of my problems, but it makes me wish he didn't know anything about my massively failing mental health, because then I wouldn't feel so bad about taking up his time and effort and having him waste it on me. 

Wow, this chapter is getting depressing. 

I try to have a little humour about my massively failing mental health, as you might be aware by now, because if I don't have something to laugh at, even if it's just myself, then I'll probably go insane simply because of the fact that pretty much everything about my life is probably super horrific to any outside viewers. But hopefully entertaining. 

One of the events that kind of, I wouldn't say 'changed my life' but it changed my perception of myself specifically in the context of my environment: the base. I'm not going to give all the details surrounding that situation but when I was in prison, there was a specific guard that kind of... Did something awful to me. Nonspecifically, he kind of beat the shit out of me. 

After he was done brutalizing me, I was on the floor of the shitty prison bathroom, kind of unable to get up off the floor for a while. He told me the usual stuff, that I was worthless and pathetic, etc, etc. That's not the important part though, that's just a bit of context. 

When I was released and was kind of forced to start working for Rell, I saw him again, a couple of months afterwards. 

We were alone in a hallway, it was nighttime. I was just trying to get back to Rell and I's quarters after running the last errand of the day, which was just getting some papers to someone else, when I saw him. I don't know what he was doing up here, away from the prisons he should have been 'guarding', and the quarters for the prison guards were in an entirely different area than where we were in the base, around the labs. 

When I noticed him, I didn't think he'd noticed me at first. I realized we were alone in the hallways and naturally that freaked me out pretty badly, so thinking that he was going to beat the shit out of me again, I tried to be as intimidating as possible to get him to hopefully leave me the fuck alone. 

Clearly that didn't work. 

I put a hardened expression on my face just as I caught his attention, and he grinned sickly. 

I glared at him and growled, trying to bare my sharp teeth like an animal, but he made his way towards me, not appearing to be threatened in any way and that's when I knew I was in trouble. He grabbed me by the shoulder from behind me. This was one of the rarer times I didn't get a flashback from that sort of thing, and instead just jumped. I tried to hide it, but I think he could see that I was nervous. I turned around quickly and pulled his hand off of my shoulder, twisting his arm. He didn't even wince. In just a couple of seconds, I found myself pinned to a wall, one of my arms twisted and pinned behind my back. I struggled, but it was clear that I wasn't getting out of this unharmed. I desperately tried not to have a panic attack, and tried not to show how close I was to getting a flashback. 

He put his mouth in my ear and said something along the lines of this: "I love how you're always walking around like you have any kind of power, any kind of protection. You think anyone cares about you?" I rolled my eyes at his weird dominance assertion. "No." I said. "I have no reason to." He seemed a little surprised, but decided to feed that pit in me further. 

"You think you're so powerful, don't you?" "No, not really." "When in reality, you're just a weak little bitch. An omega. You're less than human." I couldn't do anything but continue to roll my eyes. This was stupid. "Yeah, I'm well aware. Have you seen what I can do?" I laughed, but he pinned me to the wall even harder. "Not even Red Leader cares about you, or even what happens to you. You're nothing but a spoil of war to him. Everyone knows this." Not gonna lie, that cut deep. Not the part about him not caring, but the 'spoil of war' part. "You're replaceable." He said. "Less than human. I know this because all the time before he grabbed you out of whatever corner you came from," Did he just imply I was a prostitute? "He didn't even refer to you by name. He called you 'subject 617', or referred to you as a spoil of war himself. He doesn't care about you." 

I pretended not to care. 

"What makes you think I give two shits what he thinks about me?" I said to him. "I know you do. I know how weak you are." "You don't know anything about me." 

Just in that moment, Rell found us. He was standing at the end of the hall. "What the hell is going on?" He asked. In that moment, the guard, who I realized I didn't even know the name of, let me go. He said, "Nothing, sir." But he grinned at me as I turned around and he walked away. 

"Even now, you need Red Leader to save you from any kind of danger. Pathetic." That was a weird thing to say because it's not like I even called him here. I didn't even know why he was walking down that hall, he likely thought I was taking too long and wanted to see what the holdup was or something. 

I wasn't even scared of that guard. Hurt by what he said, probably. Scared of him? No. He just seemed like the kind of guy to have his masculinity and dominance threatened any time someone spoke up other than him, or any time anyone seemed like they had even a modicum more of a brain than he did, that is to say, any. 

Rell walked up to me and asked, "What the hell was going on just now?" I rolled my eyes and shrugged. "I'm going to be honest, I don't even know." We started walking back to Rell's quarters. "I walked past him and he pinned me to the wall, acting like he was going to beat the shit out of me or something." Rell squinted at me. "Are you sure you didn't do anything?" He said. I laughed, trying to mask the anger I had when he didn't believe me, as I said, "Literally nothing. I did nothing. I walked past him, and somehow that threatened him so much that he needed to threaten me with physical violence." 

I didn't tell him about the things that guard said, but I think that it was clear to him that something he did effected me, but I don't think he knew how. 

After that, I kind of treated him differently. Not badly, or like a god or something, just differently. I treated him like I was less than human. I already didn't really ask for much or care much for my own well-being, but even then I gave my suggestions when asked, talked to other people sometimes, overall tried to kind of at least act like I wasn't feeling like shit all the time because I didn't want people asking questions. 

But after that event with that fucking guard, things just kind of changed for me because I changed them. I stopped talking to people, I stopped eating, I didn't really sleep. I picked up that habit of smoking that I stopped when I got here because I didn't have any smokes, but I managed to seek them out. I stopped caring for my physical appearance as much, too. Most of all, I drank. I drank and drank and drank.

It might not seem like that guard did that much, and he really didn't. Most of this behaviour was spurred on by what he had done before, and how that, and I don't really like saying this, but it kind of 'retraumatized' me to a degree. I was just getting over what that guard did to me the first time when he pulled this shit, and that brought back up a lot of memories of not just what he'd done, but what other people have done and generally it didn't feel good. 

I stopped sleeping because I kept having PTSD nightmares. I stopped eating because I didn't feel like I deserved it, and I wanted to have control over something in my life. I stopped talking to people because the paranoia of them thinking about how much I didn't matter and the fact that they're probably just being polite or something ruined me. I started smoking again because I needed something to do to pass the time while I sat outside in the biting cold and thought about how much I wanted to die so I didn't look suspicious. I stopped caring about my physical appearance in the hopes that people would stay away from me, and because I didn't see the point. I wanted to look as shitty as I felt. I started drinking again because I'm an addict and when something bad happens, it's my nature to go to what I'm addicted to as a coping mechanism. 

This was a kind of rock-bottom I was used to. 

Of course, it lead to what it usually did when I was in this kind of mood back when Rell was Tord and Green Leader was Edd and Matt had a flesh and bone chin and we lived together. It lead to fighting. 

I'm an angry drunk, just like my mum. I yell and get pissy and fight and then pass out in the bathtub just like her, too. I'm practically living proof that the apple really doesn't fall all that far from the tree. I'm exactly the type to physically assault someone unless pretty provoked, but I can still get pretty aggressive when drunk. I'd regularly pick fights with Rell to the point where he would just leave the room. He never kicked me out, though. I think it was because he wanted to avoid people seeing me like this, which was understandable. I didn't care at the time if people saw me like that, still don't. It's probably not super healthy, though. 

At one point, I remember being drunk and we got into it as per usual. I pissed him off pretty bad, I don't even remember what I said, but I do remember when he pinned me against the wall, on my back. 

Suddenly, I couldn't hear him yelling at me anymore. 

Everything stopped. 

I couldn't see anything. 

I couldn't hear anything. 

But I could feel something. 

An immeasurable amount of fear. 

Hands. Tiny little hands. Everywhere. 

These feelings consumed me. These tiny hands on my body tore me apart. Ripped open my abdomen, and killed me. I can say for sure that I have never been more terrified in my entire life. I thought I was going to die. 

I didn't even feel it when I fell to the floor. I just... Came to there, on my knees. I couldn't breathe. My hands were on my head, pulling my hair. The bottle that was previously in my hand was spilling out onto the floor. I was crying. I couldn't even bear the thought of what Rell thought of me in that moment. He was frustrated, clearly, yelling at me. I was in the wrong, but then I suddenly couldn't take it and started crying? That was weak and kind of pathetic. Couldn't even take what I dole out. 

But then I felt arms around me. 

Rell picked me up, and carried me to the bathroom. He was being really weirdly gentle, which wasn't really something that he does. He's not the gentle type, at least not with me, which made everything even weirder. But I didn't care. 

For whatever reason, he kept telling me the date and time. I can't remember what it was now, but he kept saying it over and over. He told me something like, "It's not happening anymore." I didn't even know what he was talking about. I couldn't process anything happening at that point, but now I realize that I'd had a flashback, and it was obvious to Rell what had happened. He was trying to help. And it was working. 

In the bathroom, I got nauseous and he held my un-styled hair back while I threw up in the toilet. It was like he knew this was going to happen. Has this happened before? I still couldn't process things. 

He took a rag from under the counter and wet it in the sink. He applied it to my face, wiping the tears and vomit off. It was really quiet. I was out of it. I could barely feel anything, physically or emotionally. Everything looked far away, like I was looking at everything from the back of a cave. My head felt like it was full of cotton, physical sensations felt like far away static. 

When Rell did speak again, I couldn't even hear it. It was muffled. 

"Tom?" He asked. 

I could barely even make a sound to confirm to him that I'd heard him. I was pretty disoriented at the time and couldn't even process just how heavily I was dissociating. I think he looked at me with some expression of pity or something, but I didn't really process it. I just kind of fell forwards into his chest, and curled up there. 

I wasn't tired, but I'm told that when I'm dissociating, I look like I'm exhausted. About to pass out tired. To a degree, it kind of feels like it, but not the sleepy kind of tired. My whole body just feels weak and kind of limp. Moving becomes all sorts of exercise, my limbs are like fifty pound weights attached to my body. Even holding my head up becomes difficult because my neck feels so weak. My brain turns into a kind of foggy mush that can't really process anything happening around me. Sometimes I can barely talk because of it. Most of the time when it happens, all I can really do is lay down somewhere and wait it out because even grounding can be too much effort. 

(Grounding is where someone who is dissociating or experiencing the worse parts of mental illness, such as anxiety or panic attacks, attempts to calm themselves down and bring themselves back to reality/the present via using the five senses. It can be something like touching things, having people touch you, like squeezing your hands, or chewing ginger or ice are some common methods of grounding.) 

I don't know if Rell knew any of this. I don't know if Edd ever explained anything about my mental bullshit to him, and knowing him he probably didn't. Most likely, he forgot and by the time he remembered, decided it wasn't actually all that important or something, or that Rell was smart enough to pick up on it on his own or just ask me. Regardless, Rell still picked me up and took me to our bed where he sat me down, undressing me a little to make me more comfortable. I don't really know what he thought about me, with my body kind of just... Comically flopping around the way it tended to when I was dissociating that heavily. I think he might have thought that I passed out or something, and that my visor somehow hadn't processed it, still showing the image of my open, digital eyes. It didn't really matter in the end, though, because he took them off and left me in bed to rest. 

I didn't really know what to do when I woke up the next morning, so I kind of just did what I usually do and lied through the entire waking up experience to avoid difficult situations I didn't want to be in, because God forbid I deal with the consequences of my actions. 

I told him that all I'd remembered was getting into a fight of some kind, that I remember yelling at him and him yelling at me or something and that was about it. I don't know if he fully caught onto my lie, but he didn't seem like it. I know him enough to say that if he knew I was lying, he'd probably call me out on it because he knows my tells and I know his. We don't exactly know what our own tells are, so we can't really change them and it mostly makes lying to each other hell unless we let each other do it. 

Lucky for me, I'm a master of lying, even moreso than him. 

What, you think he or anyone else really knows the full extent of my rapidly collapsing mental health? Look, there's things I'm good at lying about and things I'm less good at lying about, and lying about myself and how I actually feel about things to dodge unwanted questions and conversations my feelings, wants and needs as a person as a way of avoiding feeling selfish and guilty for things that are necessary for the sake of my health and happiness is one of the things I happen to excel at, personally. 

The point is, I don't think Rell caught me lying, but if he did, he didn't show it. If he did, he might have known that there was a reason I was lying and that I just didn't want to talk about it. Either way, I don't think it matters. 

He gave me an aspirin and some water for the headache, but I didn't really have one. Hangovers don't affect me like they used to, which is kind of a really cool effect that I wasn't expecting, but is well appreciated anyways. Honestly, one of the best things about this monster bullshit in my body, not going to lie. If there's one thing I definitely do not want to give up about this whole thing, it's the fact that my liver has never been in better shape despite my rampant drinking and the fact that I just don't get hangovers the way I used to. I might get a nasty headache (at least by my standards, which can be much lower or much higher than most people's depending on the situation), sometimes, but at the very least, no more vomiting, which is great. 

Boy, I just love to go on random tangents, don't I? Will I ever stop? No, I'm unmedicated. Fuck you. 

Rell and I went about our business as per usual, but things felt different and I don't think it was just me. Rell was a lot more careful about touching me for some reason, and gave me personal space. Maybe it had something to do with the flashback he gave me, (that's actually kind of obvious, I may be an idiot but I'm not stupid), but he was kind of... Like, gentle and careful. He kept other people out of my personal space too, which was also strange. Like he wanted to avoid me having another flashback like I did. Of course, I had to pretend that I didn't remember the night before because of my lie that morning, so I couldn't really thank him in any way other than giving him really confused looks and trying desperately to play along and not give myself up. 

But yeah. Things were different after that. I don't know why, but it seems like he kind of... Respected me more? Or maybe he wanted me to think that. Maybe it was some kind of elaborate trick or something. Maybe he thought he was going to pull the wool over my eyes and fuck me over massively. Maybe he was just trying to use my weaknesses, whatever few I've got, against me in order to... I don't know. I don't even know what he'd do, but I definitely did not trust him being this nice to me. And it's not like there was even that much of a change in behaviour, he was just respecting me a little. Avoiding what triggers he was aware of so as to not remind me of horrific trauma that he doesn't even know about. 

Is that a bad thing? I mean, what if he finds out all of my triggers and tries to use them against me? I don't know why he would do that or what situation would call for that, (or at the time I didn't--a story for another time), but he could do that. I guess anyone could, though. But he's not anyone, he's smart, cold, calculated. He'll probably go through anyone he wants to get his goal because that's the kind of person he is. He could drop me like a piece of rotten meat if it suited him. I think. 

I don't know why he would do that, but I'll play along. I will do whatever it takes to make sure he doesn't find out any more of my bullshit, (hah), or I'll at least try. I will fit whatever narrative he's trying to build. 

I think that's called "metagaming" or something, but I'm probably the best at it. 

Anyways, that's today's entry. I was supposed to write about something entirely different, an idea that was suggested to me by a friend, but for some fucking reason that just did not happen. I don't really know what this bullshit chapter was, but it exists now. Fuck you. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you want to hear about something specific when it comes to anecdotes and lore or whatever the kids are calling this shit these days, let me know in the comments below. ring the bell, if you liked this video give it a thumbs up, there is no god, don't forget to subscribe

**Author's Note:**

> i think we should replace the mona lisa with this.


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